The Drinking Diaries: Alcohol "As" a Second Language.

I took a couple classes in high school and college, but I didn’t have the time to really study the subject, so I hung out with students who mostly didn’t speak “alcohol” until I graduated. Then I had the funds, and more importantly, the time to do an “immersion” in the language and I began to speak it quite “fluidly”, so to speak. I held two jobs, one where this was the dominate language, it was a bar my boyfriend opened called The Fur Shop after he found an old neon Fur Shop sign in a warehouse. I cocktailed there, i spoke only “Alcohol” with the customers, i got all the jokes, we had this in common. Then I had an early morning diner job and after speaking alcohol all evening I had a hard time crossing over back to my native language which felt like Latin at the time.

When I took “French” in high school, my teacher said that at some point you will get so comfortable with the language that you will start “thinking” in French. Well, that never happened to me with French but it sure did with Alcohol.

Speaking Alcohol with other Alcohol speaking friends felt fun, connected, we had a common bond–our own “language”. When I tried to quit speaking it I felt left out, like I was deaf and they were all sharing a great story. Being bilingual was the answer.

I wanted to became a high functioning “Bi-linguist”, then I could juggle both languages in the same conversation. Connect in two languages. But unfortunately, “Alcohol” was the dominate language when I needed it to be second, it didn’t want to be my “second” language, it wanted to be FIRST! So, it made it’s way in my thoughts when the room wasn’t speaking it, it told me stories in it’s language when I tried to speak my born language, it pulled me in and said “you need me to understand, get along, be funny, get the jokes”. I loved and hated this language I felt crazy.

Trying not to speak it after all these years took a total mind change. A full blown belief that I was no longer benefiting, connecting, learning or loving when this was the language I spoke. I had to stop for good, otherwise a couple words would slip in, sentences, paragraphs, stories, topics, hours, evenings, lifetimesssssss…..STOP!!!! Finally….

Now, I speak my Native language, my natural, authentic language with kindness and attention. The more I lavish in MY language the more I like the swirls and shapes the language makes. I hear new things in it all the time, it sounds like music or a poem sometimes for no reason at all. It is like my mothers voice, soothing and familiar. I believe some people can totally speak “Alcohol” randomly and well and it doesn’t TAKE over their voice. And for you, I say “cheers”. I can’t, I have done a lot of research in the subject. For me, It’s better to just speak “ME” every word, every time.

Thank you for listening to my story. Please don’t congratulate me. I am just letting those of you out there that are TIRED of “thinking” in “Alcohol”, there is a way out, it takes a village( you can guess what the village doesn’t speak).